I think there are several aspects (bias disclaimer I'm clearly a righty) I think

pro GG is about:Video games journalism generally which has been a cesspit of corruption since sinclair userthe Clichyness of the indie scenemeanieheads and their encroachment into some the last areas largely free of such things

anti GG is about:the first two being a smoke screen and gamers are assholes that display a lot of *ismsgames need SJ

Of course the reality is that games are made for sale to customers, said customers do find it funny to do things in games that are clearly abhorent in real life ( I'll admit to never tiring of the wrongness you can do in GTA). Ergo with the possible exception of the indiegame cliche issue its all meaningless. Like all other media, nothing will change. Its almost like both men and women like male protagonists and damsels just like films, books, TV shows......

leady wrote:pro GG is about:Video games journalism generally which has been a cesspit of corruption since sinclair userthe Clichyness of the indie scenemeanieheads and their encroachment into some the last areas largely free of such thingsanti GG is about:the first two being a smoke screen and gamers are assholes that display a lot of *ismsgames need SJ

This still makes no sense on how the two are linked. Probably because they aren't and this whole discussion is stupid.

LaserGuy wrote:There's also the part that one of those groups has been engaging in severe harassment including threats of violence against the other.

Yup, that's very true, but that seems to be tied up around the 'women in gaming' issue rather than the ethical journalism issue. I'd be hesitant to lump them in the same boat. In the same way I wouldn't say people who want womens rights in gaming upheld, to be completely fine with poor ethics in games.

The Great Hippo wrote:My dearest, most cherished friend, Paranoid__Android:... truly, you are a champion among champions. ...Sincerely and with great fondness,~The Great Hippo

Paranoid__Android wrote:This still makes no sense on how the two are linked. Probably because they aren't and this whole discussion is stupid.

It goes back to the origin of the controversy, which started when the jilted boyfriend of a female game developer posted a long screed accusing his ex-girlfriend of trading sex with games journalists for positive reviews. This sparked some protests, and an organized campaign of harassment against the developer, the journalists and any journalist who dared to defend them.

Many people looked at this response, noted the nasty, gendered nature of the harassment and the thinness of the original allegations (for example, at least one of the journalists accused of trading sex for good reviews never actually published a review of the game in question) and concluded that this was mainly motivated by misogyny.

So ultimately the argument is about the validity of these complaints. Are they legitimate gripes about games journalism? Or are they an attempt by a predominantly young, white, male group of gamers to exclude, by violence if necessary, anyone who doesn't adhere to their ideas of what games and gamers should be?

(Which, if you're reading closely, isn't necessarily a real dichotomy, it's entirely possible for there to be a real corruption problem in games and for the chief voices pointing out this problem to have a vile, misogynist agenda).

People hate on Zoe Quinn for more than just "she may-or-may-not have slept with someone". She's also been screwing up the "Fine Young Capitalists" game jam that was supportive of female developers. It should be noted that the Fine Young Capitalists take the side of #GamerGate due to Zoe Quinn behavior.

There's a trend in #GamerGate to differentiate between "bad" feminists and "good" feminists. "Bad" feminists have been given the term meaniehead... for better or for worse.

People hate on Zoe Quinn for more than just "she may-or-may-not have slept with someone". She's also been screwing up the "Fine Young Capitalists" game jam that was supportive of female developers. It should be noted that the Fine Young Capitalists take the side of #GamerGate due to Zoe Quinn behavior.

There's a trend in #GamerGate to differentiate between "bad" feminists and "good" feminists. "Bad" feminists have been given the term meaniehead... for better or for worse.

From the documents I've seen (I'd have to look them up when I get home, but they should be easy to find on your own), the FYC retracted that accusation.

Would be worth checking the FYC recent twitter, etc. posts if you are able.

(Which, if you're reading closely, isn't necessarily a real dichotomy, it's entirely possible for there to be a real corruption problem in games and for the chief voices pointing out this problem to have a vile, misogynist agenda).

And many of the "antigamergate" publications that were accused have made public statements that they are buckling down on ethical standards, and have revised their code of conduct to match.

That hasn't stopped the threats and harassment against Zoe (who's not a journalist and thus unable to commit the alleged crime of breach of journalistic ethics), Anita (who's a social commentator, and thus while technically someone reporting on games, very, very difficult to claim she's operating a system of accepting payment for good reviews), and others.

It's...yeah, there have been a few of the journalist commentators who said abysmally stupid things -- the antigg people should absolutely be obligated to repudiate that, to distance their voice from that one. However, they've addressed the (evidence shows to be manufactured) concern of using "gamer" to apply to a toxic, incredibly loud and pervasive subset. They've worked to address the concern of "bought reviews". Most of the other complaints of "ethical misconduct" can be easily shown to be misunderstandings of, well, how journalism works (and this isn't an "everybody does it", this is "it's not possible to have no contact with the people you're interviewing"), which leaves the complaints of "you got feminism in my games!" That's a demand for censorship, a demand for silencing others, pure and simple. Ironically, publications like polygon have even said they would welcome the gamergate folk to start their own journal, with their own desired form of game reviews -- but they will not bow to demands for censorship.

And on the other side -- the gamergate group have made few, if any concessions. They claim they repudiate doxxing or harassment? In response to 4chan eliminating doxes, one of the main gamergate guys started 8chan, with widespread support (through patreon), which has had the site owners publically state that they refuse to take down doxes of zoe and her ilk, and will ban members that attempt to bury the info by spamming posts. It is quite simply not enough to say "well, I haven't harassed anyone". By being part of the group, you are obligated to police the group, and ensure others are not doing it either. As I posted earlier, a recurring goal for gamergate members is to silence the "meaniehead", and seek to remove funding (not just through boycott, either!) of any publications who give them a platform.

I was wondering how this forum had avoided this flamewar. It's because it was hiding in that thread I never read.

LaserGuy wrote:There's also the part that one of those groups has been engaging in severe harassment including threats of violence against the other.

Trolls and assholes on both sides have engaged in inexcusable abuse.

Paranoid__Android wrote:This still makes no sense on how the two are linked. Probably because they aren't and this whole discussion is stupid.

An important part of the link is the completely one-sided way in which the work of Sarkeesian and others has been portrayed. On most of the media websites her videos have received nothing but glowing praise, while all criticism, no matter how well written or researched, has been completely ignored, mocked, or derided as misogynist.

The media's defense of this treatment (if they even bother) is to say that all criticism of her work is without merit. They don't need to present it in the same way that a news program doesn't need to present a creationist. So in order to show that this is corrupt or unethical journalism, it is necessary to show that Sarkeesian's work is flawed and subject to criticism.

There is a similar story with Zoe Quinn and some of her actions, particularly with regards to TFYC. This is why Gamergate is inseparable from feminist issues, even when it's not misogynist.

From the documents I've seen (I'd have to look them up when I get home, but they should be easy to find on your own), the FYC retracted that accusation.

Would be worth checking the FYC recent twitter, etc. posts if you are able.

I'm not sure what you saw or how old it was, but at one point fairly early on there was an attempt at a "peace treaty" between Quinn and TFYC. It fell through and their relationship became worse than ever.

Derek wrote:I was wondering how this forum had avoided this flamewar. It's because it was hiding in that thread I never read.

LaserGuy wrote:There's also the part that one of those groups has been engaging in severe harassment including threats of violence against the other.

Trolls and assholes on both sides have engaged in inexcusable abuse.

I'm pretty sure that there are very different degrees of severity involved in the amounts of abuse involved. I have yet to hear of anyone on the "pro" side of this disagreement having their families receiving threats or harassing phone calls, and I have yet to hear anyone on the "anti" side of this say that they're going to shoot up a school over this.

Derek wrote:Trolls and assholes on both sides have engaged in inexcusable abuse.

Quite likely, but only one side has it as a major goal.

Derek wrote:An important part of the link is the completely one-sided way in which the work of Sarkeesian and others has been portrayed. On most of the media websites her videos have received nothing but glowing praise, while all criticism, no matter how well written or researched, has been completely ignored, mocked, or derided as misogynist.

I've seen plenty of critique of Sarkeesian. What I've primarily seen derided as misogynist are the attacks, or demands that she should be silent, and not even because she is "inaccurate" but because she is "a feminazi".

There are probably quite a few critiques which get written off as misogynist because, while being phrased politely, they come along with the waves of the misogynist comments, or otherwise seem to not be arguing in good faith. It's possible to be completely polite and not say the "wrong" words, while still making it obvious to your audience that you're just there to tear them down.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

LaserGuy wrote:I'm pretty sure that there are very different degrees of severity involved in the amounts of abuse involved. I have yet to hear of anyone on the "pro" side of this disagreement having their families receiving threats or harassing phone calls, and I have yet to hear anyone on the "anti" side of this say that they're going to shoot up a school over this.

But there is no "pro" or "anti" side. There's just a whole bunch of groups yelling at each other. #GamerGate is slightly different from #NotYourShield, who is different from TFYCs. They may all be against Zoe, but they don't necessarily condone the actions of one another.

Similarly, Zoe, Anita, Kotaku, Polygon, Gamasutra and other media may all be on one side (the "anti-gamergaters"), but they are also separate groups of people. I am not going to hold Zoe accountable for the horrible twitter posts that she's completely unrelated to (hell, its hard enough to connect Sam Biddle to Kotaku... and Gawker in general.)

And then there are the /b/tards who are probably hacking everyone and harassing both sides for the lulz. Thats what they do. More of them seem to be on #GamerGate side of course... but no one actually condones their behavior. Just remember that they're always at play here and will hack for no reason other than to stir up flames between groups.

----------------

Honestly, its the culture of internet vigilantism that needs to stop. (ie: group 3 here). The culture of internet harassment has been festering for years, even before all that Scientology crap from a few years ago. But with everyone congratulating internet vigilantes, more and more vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands.

These death threats and troll campaigns were being used against Scientologists just a few years ago, with public support. Remember that.

LaserGuy wrote:I'm pretty sure that there are very different degrees of severity involved in the amounts of abuse involved. I have yet to hear of anyone on the "pro" side of this disagreement having their families receiving threats or harassing phone calls, and I have yet to hear anyone on the "anti" side of this say that they're going to shoot up a school over this.

But there is no "pro" or "anti" side. There's just a whole bunch of groups yelling at each other.

I'm not going to hold TFYCs accountable for what /b/tards are doing to Zoe. But similarly, I'm not going to hold Zoe's side accountable for what /b/tards have done to TFYCs indiegogo campaign.

And yes, I'm fairly certain that the /b/tards are the ones harassing both sides for the lulz. Thats what they do. More of them seem to be on #GamerGate side of course.

LaserGuy wrote:I'm pretty sure that there are very different degrees of severity involved in the amounts of abuse involved. I have yet to hear of anyone on the "pro" side of this disagreement having their families receiving threats or harassing phone calls,

Then you haven't looked very hard. Several Gamergaters have had their families threatened over this. Several have reported leaving their homes. Here are a couplecollections of harassment. Trolls are equal-opportunity harassers.

Internet Vigilantism. We placed trolls on a pedestal and rewarded them for taking down Scientology and SOPA.

The culture of death threats to threaten and silence your opponent has been going on since at least the Scientology crap a few years ago, and people liked it back then. (presumably because Scientologists were small enough that it was hard to find people who'd defend them). This is the internet culture that we've condoned.

LaserGuy wrote:There's also the part that one of those groups has been engaging in severe harassment including threats of violence against the other.

The average angry internet gamer can barely lever their fat arse out of their gaming chair without having an asthma attack - they aren't a real threat. There are a lot of gamers and a lot of us are arseholes, and a super small minority are super arseholes who do stupid illegal things on the internet (but thats like 0.001%), but the broad arsehole base is pretty loud without straying that far.

LaserGuy wrote:I'm pretty sure that there are very different degrees of severity involved in the amounts of abuse involved. I have yet to hear of anyone on the "pro" side of this disagreement having their families receiving threats or harassing phone calls,

Then you haven't looked very hard. Several Gamergaters have had their families threatened over this. Several have reported leaving their homes. Here are a couplecollections of harassment. Trolls are equal-opportunity harassers.

That very well may be, but the main issue is that regardless of which individual actually ends up performing the attacks, there is one platform which has it as a public goal to dig up "dirt", put people out of a job, and silence their "opposition" (see for evidence the reddit thread brought up earlier, I posted a relevant excerpt). There is one platform encouraging this behavior, whether you choose to believe they are actually carrying it out or not.

Even if one were to grant, for the sake of argument, that both sides are performing the acts in equal measure, there is still only one of the platforms/ethos/whatever word you choose to use which advocates this mode of thinking.

Zoe, the game journalists, etc. do not advocate that the Gamergate folks be "revealed" and "silenced". At most, they advocate that their complaints are "without merit" and should not be taken seriously (quite similar to what Gamergate folks advocate about their opposition). Gamergate, however, holds that it would be right and proper for polygon, etc., to go out of business, and that all the various and sundry "truthiness" of what zoe and theirs have allegedly done should be spread far and wide.

That's the principle problem here. If Gamergate were to drop all that chaff, to stop going around with "my research has revealed that Zoe cheated on her 4th grade history test, and also, throws like a girl", to expel as a public(!) goal to get their opponents silenced, to focus singularly and passionately on simply uncovering incidents of journalistic corruption and working to reshape the codes of conduct, they would be respectable.

But as long as "meanieheads need to shut up about our games" is a major pillar of their movement, they will not be.

The culture of death threats to threaten and silence your opponent has been going on since at least the Scientology crap a few years ago, and people liked it back then. (presumably because Scientologists were small enough that it was hard to find people who'd defend them). This is the internet culture that we've condoned.

I honestly wasn't aware that Anonymous was doing anything but DDosing scientologists and uncovering evidence of them breaking the law. To my understanding, it was the Scientologists that were sending death threats and harassing people.

I am suitably chastised.

The average angry internet gamer can barely lever their fat arse out of their gaming chair without having an asthma attack - they aren't a real threat. There are a lot of gamers and a lot of us are arseholes, and a super small minority are super arseholes who do stupid illegal things on the internet (but thats like 0.001%), but the broad arsehole base is pretty loud without straying that far.

It's interesting, especially in light of Knight's post, to see someone saying "well, they're only condoning and respecting behavior that is actually in reality pretty easy to do, and has had frequent, documented, real-world impact. It's not like they're actually doing anything."

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

KnightExemplar wrote:The culture of death threats to threaten and silence your opponent has been going on since at least the Scientology crap a few years ago, and people liked it back then. (presumably because Scientologists were small enough that it was hard to find people who'd defend them). This is the internet culture that we've condoned.

I don't remember death threats against scientologists and can't find it via google or searching this forum. Can you link to an article or something?

KnightExemplar wrote:The culture of death threats to threaten and silence your opponent has been going on since at least the Scientology crap a few years ago, and people liked it back then. (presumably because Scientologists were small enough that it was hard to find people who'd defend them). This is the internet culture that we've condoned.

I don't remember death threats against scientologists and can't find it via google or searching this forum. Can you link to an article or something?

No, I don't. Its more about the culture of that group and what I remember reading from them. People bragged about it. And Project Chanology in general had phone campaigns, DDOS attacks, and black-fax operations scheduled vs Scientology in general.

KrytenKoro wrote:That very well may be, but the main issue is that regardless of which individual actually ends up performing the attacks, there is one platform which has it as a public goal to dig up "dirt", put people out of a job, and silence their "opposition" (see for evidence the reddit thread brought up earlier, I posted a relevant excerpt). There is one platform encouraging this behavior, whether you choose to believe they are actually carrying it out or not.

Even if one were to grant, for the sake of argument, that both sides are performing the acts in equal measure, there is still only one of the platforms/ethos/whatever word you choose to use which advocates this mode of thinking.

Zoe, the game journalists, etc. do not advocate that the Gamergate folks be "revealed" and "silenced". At most, they advocate that their complaints are "without merit" and should not be taken seriously (quite similar to what Gamergate folks advocate about their opposition). Gamergate, however, holds that it would be right and proper for polygon, etc., to go out of business, and that all the various and sundry "truthiness" of what zoe and theirs have allegedly done should be spread far and wide.

That's the principle problem here. If Gamergate were to drop all that chaff, to stop going around with "my research has revealed that Zoe cheated on her 4th grade history test, and also, throws like a girl", to expel as a public(!) goal to get their opponents silenced, to focus singularly and passionately on simply uncovering incidents of journalistic corruption and working to reshape the codes of conduct, they would be respectable.

But as long as "meanieheads need to shut up about our games" is a major pillar of their movement, they will not be.

Please, show me some evidence of anything more than a few individual actors encouraging this kind of behavior, or trying to silence the opposition. Fun fact: On /r/gamerghazi (the closest thing to an anti-GG reddit) you will be banned for supporting gamergate (it's their self-described "primary rule"). On /r/kotakuinaction, the perspective of anti-GGers is encouraged, and they had an anti-GGer do an AMA yesterday. From what I can see, the only ones that appear to want anyone silenced are the anti-GGers (I don't know about Quinn or Sarkeesian, but this at least appears to be the view of most anti-GG media sites), and the pro-GGers are just asking for fair representation.

KrytenKoro wrote:It's interesting, especially in light of Knight's post, to see someone saying "well, they're only condoning and respecting behavior that is actually in reality pretty easy to do, and has had frequent, documented, real-world impact. It's not like they're actually doing anything."

Yes they do have real impact, they get them mainstream press coverage. I'd have a little sex wee every time some idiot threatened me on the internet if I were them

leady wrote:Of course the reality is that games are made for sale to customers, said customers do find it funny to do things in games that are clearly abhorent in real life ( I'll admit to never tiring of the wrongness you can do in GTA). Ergo with the possible exception of the indiegame cliche issue its all meaningless. Like all other media, nothing will change. Its almost like both men and women like male protagonists and damsels just like films, books, TV shows......

What astounds me the most is that GG aren't embracing the whole Social Justice thing.

Keep doing Baldy McWhiteguy, and you're making games for the same bracket you've always made them for.

Try to attract more players, you increase your profit lines. Because there's a shitload of nonstraight, nonwhite, nonmale gamers playing games. The 18-35 White Male Gamer is a minority in gaming these days. You can ignore everyone else all you want and say they aren't "real" gamers because they're playing Bejeweled or Farmville or whatever, but the point remains - shit like Candy Crush makes an asston of money with very little investment. GTA5 makes an asston, sure.. but it takes an asston to make it.

$250+ million to make GTA5, has $800+ million in revenue. It also ran the end user .. what, $60 a person?

Candy Crush Saga is estimated to pull in $1,000,000 a day. With an estimated average $3 per player. And cost them... you think it was even $100,000 for it?

The long term goal should be conversion of "casual" gamers to "serious" gamers. The last thing you want is to further alienate them by making the "serious" gamer look like a woman-hating basement dweller. And pretty soon, next ten, fifteen years, if you want a game like Halo or Doom or whatever... you'll have to be looking at the Indies. Because the mainstream publishers will only be dealing with mobile games with a much higher development:profit ratio.

heuristically_alone wrote:I want to write a DnD campaign and play it by myself and DM it myself.

heuristically_alone wrote:I have been informed that this is called writing a book.

EDIT: Now to be fair, TFYC are embracing #GamerGate because they're anti-Zoe. So its all about political posturing. I bring this up because to believe that anything about #Gamergate is actually about issues is a mistake. The core of #GamerGate is politics.

Again, look at these logs of Zoe / TFYC, which serve as one of the focal points of #GamerGate: http://i.imgur.com/S2xPLaS.png . Zoe was actively trying to shut down TFYC's Indiegogo campaign. It's not about "issues" to these people, its office politics being aired out online. Talking about "issues" is just a tool for both sides to drum up support for their side.

I think I'm bowing out, because this is just becoming the same ol rehash it always was.

Knight, I absolutely appreciate your input, it was very enlightening, even if I didn't always agree with it.

If anyone's interested:

Spoiler:

Derek wrote:

KrytenKoro wrote:That very well may be, but the main issue is that regardless of which individual actually ends up performing the attacks, there is one platform which has it as a public goal to dig up "dirt", put people out of a job, and silence their "opposition" (see for evidence the reddit thread brought up earlier, I posted a relevant excerpt). There is one platform encouraging this behavior, whether you choose to believe they are actually carrying it out or not.

Even if one were to grant, for the sake of argument, that both sides are performing the acts in equal measure, there is still only one of the platforms/ethos/whatever word you choose to use which advocates this mode of thinking.

Zoe, the game journalists, etc. do not advocate that the Gamergate folks be "revealed" and "silenced". At most, they advocate that their complaints are "without merit" and should not be taken seriously (quite similar to what Gamergate folks advocate about their opposition). Gamergate, however, holds that it would be right and proper for polygon, etc., to go out of business, and that all the various and sundry "truthiness" of what zoe and theirs have allegedly done should be spread far and wide.

That's the principle problem here. If Gamergate were to drop all that chaff, to stop going around with "my research has revealed that Zoe cheated on her 4th grade history test, and also, throws like a girl", to expel as a public(!) goal to get their opponents silenced, to focus singularly and passionately on simply uncovering incidents of journalistic corruption and working to reshape the codes of conduct, they would be respectable.

But as long as "meanieheads need to shut up about our games" is a major pillar of their movement, they will not be.

Please, show me some evidence of anything more than a few individual actors encouraging this kind of behavior, or trying to silence the opposition. Fun fact: On /r/gamerghazi (the closest thing to an anti-GG reddit) you will be banned for supporting gamergate (it's their self-described "primary rule"). On /r/kotakuinaction, the perspective of anti-GGers is encouraged, and they had an anti-GGer do an AMA yesterday. From what I can see, the only ones that appear to want anyone silenced are the anti-GGers (I don't know about Quinn or Sarkeesian, but this at least appears to be the view of most anti-GG media sites), and the pro-GGers are just asking for fair representation.

As I said, it was linked above, and I posted an excerpt from it pointing out a particularly relevant post.

If it wasn't moved over from the darkside news thread, then it's still over there.

As for "trying to silence the opposition" the existence of "project bayonetta 2" and "8chan". There you go.

As far as "most anti-GG media sites" -- polygon, one of the main media journals attacked? Specifically said they welcome the GG groups to start their own journal.

So, no, to all your claims.

leady wrote:

KrytenKoro wrote:It's interesting, especially in light of Knight's post, to see someone saying "well, they're only condoning and respecting behavior that is actually in reality pretty easy to do, and has had frequent, documented, real-world impact. It's not like they're actually doing anything."

Yes they do have real impact, they get them mainstream press coverage. I'd have a little sex wee every time some idiot threatened me on the internet if I were them

You've never been doxxed or had someone in your family doxxed, have you?

If you haven't seen my posts about what it's like and how it fucks your stuff up, you should look them up -- and then kindly stop spreading nonsense about how it's "no big deal, really".

Sure, hypothetically, it's only intensely depressing to have anonymous voices pile hate onto your anonymous persona on the internet. That's a totally moot "justification" once you're no longer anonymous, and they know where you're going to be -- because they can easily, and will willingly, fuck your life up.

Otherwise, I'm done. I don't have the strength to keep on doing this.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

They summed it up perfectly from what i can gather about the whole debate.

I just don't understand any of it. From what i've seen its just a bunch of people argueing with each other for literally no reason.basicly "we don't like what you said, so instead of moving on, we are just going to argue with you!" because that isn't completely pointless.

What astounds me the most is that GG aren't embracing the whole Social Justice thing.

Keep doing Baldy McWhiteguy, and you're making games for the same bracket you've always made them for.

Try to attract more players, you increase your profit lines. Because there's a shitload of nonstraight, nonwhite, nonmale gamers playing games. The 18-35 White Male Gamer is a minority in gaming these days. You can ignore everyone else all you want and say they aren't "real" gamers because they're playing Bejeweled or Farmville or whatever, but the point remains - shit like Candy Crush makes an asston of money with very little investment. GTA5 makes an asston, sure.. but it takes an asston to make it.

You see this is the erroneous line of thought that I think angers the hordes. The fact is COD infinity appeals to people that like pretty much like the same thing as the "wrong" demographic, but the reality is that this expands over all groups. Its the same reason that all media has exactly the same narrative. Men want to read about male heroes rescuing damsels, women also prefer practically the same tropes. So what the hell can you do to something like COD infinity that won't make it materially shitter to your major customer bases? I don't think anyone has an issue with bejeweled etc, go for it. But to believe there is a sizeable market for multiple $1bn budget versions of twilight were you play Bella getting wooed (or substitute any other non masculine protagonist narrative), well I'd just point you to the movie and book industries. Is there a niche market for such things ? sure - I guess Gone home floats some peoples boat and fair play. Will there be an occasional title that plays with the standard narratives (buffys etc)? Absolutely and they may well be excellent due to novelty. But expect 90% of major budget games to match the same tropes (yes I've used it) that have existed for 100s of years - practically everyone likes them (or at least in self selecting set that likes narratives) !

But yes I fully support generation of new genres for new audiences & I personally feel you can try to soften the "white male gamer" AAA titles, but you are guaranteed to fail. (which is why this is all meaningless, the market is king). Other people get annoyed at meanieheads for trying I suspect my personal main choices of paradox war games and RPGs are a fair distance down the target list anyway (although CK2 should be in their sights, thats full of things to make them angry )

You've never been doxxed or had someone in your family doxxed, have you?

Well no, but i don't specifically put myself in the public eye - and if anything I'm much more polite online. Its not nice, both sides do it, but if you are a public figure it happens. Its much more shitty to private citizens.

You've never been doxxed or had someone in your family doxxed, have you?

Well no, but i don't specifically put myself in the public eye - and if anything I'm much more polite online. Its not nice, both sides do it, but if you are a public figure it happens. Its much more shitty to private citizens.

Almost by definition, Doxxing someone generally forces a private citizen to turn into a public one. Weev for example has been glorified for his Doxxing efforts, including his doxxing of Kathy Sierra. Kathy Sierra was a nobody until Weev doxxed her.

All doxxed targets are private citizens. Otherwise, you wouldn't need to "dox" them. I don't need to "Dox" President Obama, we know he lives in the White House. You basically can't dox a public figure.

"private citizens," sure, in the sense that they don't work for the gov't, but they're already in the public eye or they wouldn't be a target. Someone without a blog or significant online presence is not a target. Someone could dox me, but why? I probably would barely notice because nobody in the online community cares about me.

Soteria wrote:"private citizens," sure, in the sense that they don't work for the gov't, but they're already in the public eye or they wouldn't be a target. Someone without a blog or significant online presence is not a target. Someone could dox me, but why? I probably would barely notice because nobody in the online community cares about me.

When you're doxxed, they start sending death threats to your phone number and swatting you. You'll notice.

leady wrote:[...]But yes I fully support generation of new genres for new audiences & I personally feel you can try to soften the "white male gamer" AAA titles, but you are guaranteed to fail. (which is why this is all meaningless, the market is king). Other people get annoyed at meanieheads for trying I suspect my personal main choices of paradox war games and RPGs are a fair distance down the target list anyway (although CK2 should be in their sights, thats full of things to make them angry )

That's why the Tomb Raider franchise was so short lived and unsuccessful, right?

I just find it beautiful what Gawker has done. They stoked the controversy, proved it right that gaming journalism perhaps has a lack of ethics, lent legitimacy to gamergate by having serious big companies pull ads from them, and now they are in all likelihood making a ton of money from the traffic they get due to the publicity.

Soteria wrote:"private citizens," sure, in the sense that they don't work for the gov't, but they're already in the public eye or they wouldn't be a target. Someone without a blog or significant online presence is not a target. Someone could dox me, but why? I probably would barely notice because nobody in the online community cares about me.

I know I said I was gone, but this is really ignorant, and I feel I need to give my story so you guys understand what being doxed is like.

I will spoiler it, since I'm not supposed to be posting here:

Spoiler:

So, when I was a kid my father used to argue with people on the internet -- pretty much in the same style, and same tone as people do here. He wasn't DDOSing anyone, he wasn't hacking anything, he just posted comments.

He also had strong political views on social values issues, and decided one day to get into an argument on a generally forum with the opposite views.

For this, one of the other posters used his available information to dox my father's contact info, his boss's contact info, and my family's contact info. We were each sent harassing phone calls (including having people call my mother and spin stories about lurid behavior my father was supposedly up to), both my father and mother's bosses were contacted and my parents badmouthed, leading my father to be put on probation, and my mother to start getting scared. At one point, the police ended up showing up at my mother's place of work -- which was a mom-and-pop retail business, so this all happened in view of all the customers that the business couldn't afford to lose.

The stress all this caused was even the final straw that broke the camel's back for my parent's marriage, so I got to deal with them screaming at each other, and trying to get me to pass the screaming on to the other, for...what, nearly a decade now. It's still going, so that was fun. (In fairness, my father wasn't a great father, and so it would likely have happened eventually -- but "right as you're trying to get into college and adapt to life without your family" is not, let's say, a healthy time for that family to be dissolving around you) It was even reported a little on some blogs (enough so that you would find discussion of the incident if you searched for my father's name) -- which, since I was named after my father, made it so fun for me to pass the security checks needed for my industry.

I. Was. A . Fucking. Child.

My mother's only online presence at the time was to facebook follow her alma mater. My father's online presence was no more than the absolute minimum any poster here has.

I don't care what side you're on, I don't care if you're opponent is a literal Nazi -- exposing someone to the aptly named internet mob, a group that doesn't care if the accusations against you have the slightest merit, a group that has no concept of "proportionality" or "restraint", a group who's only goal is to inflict every bit of suffering that it feels it can (individually, meaning oooooooooh it'll add up) get away with -- that should be a gotdamn crime, and any person who takes pride in having "unmasked" their opponent is a fucking monster.

"Oh, but they doxed us first!" -- then go to the fucking police. Have the fucking police track down this person and get revenge for you. At least they'll make sure to get the right bloody person.

"Oh, but they're saying real bad things about us!" -- no, they're saying bad things about your anonymous internet persona. If you can't stand it, dump the persona and construct a new one. If you're honest with yourself, you're probably harassing their persona just as much.

"Oh, but what they're doing is really wrong!" -- again, cops. Hell, you'd be more than welcome to get your friends to petition the cops, over and over, to track down who your opponent is in real life and deal with them. But once you decide to start being a vigilante, you've pretty much guaranteed that you're inviting an enormity against a person who, even if you got the "right person", only deserved maybe a slap in the face.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up. About. Doxing. Being. "Okay".

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

PolakoVoador wrote:That's why the Tomb Raider franchise was so short lived and unsuccessful, right?

I'm not sure Tomb Raider's the ideal franchise to use, here. The appeal, particularly for the first six games, was more jiggle-based than aspiring character-based. Lara Croft, for a good ten years, was a one-dimensional character with three-dimensional breasts. Which, I suppose, is better than Nate Drake*, who for the most part was a one-dimensional character with one-dimensional dialogue.

Actually... despite following all the classic tropes, (Hero collects them all to save the Damsel in Distress) Legend of Zelda series seems to have a huge female following in my experience (I presume its elves / bishonen factor with Link). So really, I don't have any rules of thumb for what "female" gamers end up liking. Especially when you consider that the Nintendo "strong independent woman" character is and always has been Samus (with exception of Metroid: Other M. No one liked that). You'd assume that Samus would get a bigger female following than Link.

Perhaps Final Fantasy X is a good example of a game with a seemingly large female population of players. At least in my experience, girls seem to have played that game all the time. And Yuna isn't quite the "strong independent woman"... but she ain't no damsel in distress either. She's just... Yuna, a pretty well thought out character.

So yeah, I don't think there's really a formula. But I can think of plenty of AAA games with female followings. The only connection between the games (Sims, Final Fantasy series, DDR, Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, Touhou) that I can think of is that they don't objectify women.

Although, Will Wright explicitly made "The Sims" after watching girls play with dolls inside of doll houses. He wanted to recreate the experience with a PC Game. So the Sims is a successful example of a AAA-game designed from the top down that was catering to the female audience.